


Divine Astronomy (a bedtime story)

by aderyn



Series: Compounds or Stars [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221b, ASiP, Gen, TBB, TRF, beautiful isn't it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:39:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story, John.</p>
<p>A story? There are a lot of those.</p>
<p>The city's crime goes spine-to-spine with spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divine Astronomy (a bedtime story)

 

_But you burn, and I know it;  
as I throw back my head to take you in  
an old transfusion happens again:  
divine astronomy is nothing to it._ _\--Adrienne Rich, “Orion”_

 

A story, John.  
  
A story? There are a lot of those.

The one where it’s the drug, or the nicotine fit, or the blood loss, or the plain bloody-mindedness, talking. The one where I go out for air. The one where you make an exit, or an entrance, or both.   The one where you die; the one in which you come back. (That one can't be written, so I won't try.)The ones where I save you; the ones where you save me.  The one where we looked up, and saw stars. (Not concussive stars; real ones; it's strange, what you remember.)  The one where you gave me a choice of two countries, and I told you the truth, and you told me the truth, and I didn't know what I was choosing--or rather, I did.

***

The tale’s a soporific to the chase:

If the late-season snow (stellar dendrites, split plates and stars) falls in the countryside (fences and hives and wayside herbs), it sifts also over the gables of Baker Street.  If Orion, belted hunter, looms in the window of a country cottage, he stares, also, cold and present, in at Sherlock , still at the violin.  The city's crime goes spine-to-spine with spring.  The bow quivers with it, quickens. John sleeps.  
  
John dreams of chemistry; Sherlock, of books.


End file.
